


Always There

by sweetcarolanne



Category: Whip It (2009)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-18
Updated: 2011-12-18
Packaged: 2017-10-27 11:40:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/295452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetcarolanne/pseuds/sweetcarolanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Perhaps the love Bliss Cavendar had been searching for had always been there for her all along...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always There

**Author's Note:**

  * For [clio_jlh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/clio_jlh/gifts).



> Dear Yuletide recipient, I hope this is something near what you wanted although there's not much conversation because my strong point is narrative. Also, thanks to my beta who prefers to remain anonymous. All standard disclaimers apply.
> 
> While all Whip It characters are of course fictional, the Misfits are a real band and truly awesome: http://www.misfits.com/
> 
> Definition of "derby wife": Another derby team mate that you feel like you’ve known your whole life and can never do without her. (layman terms: the bestest friend you have in the league. From this site "Some Derby Slang Explained": http://thechillipadis.com/2011/06/06/some-derby-slang-explained/

As she looked at her friend sprawled on the rug beside her, both of them still red-faced from giggling and wide-eyed with wonder at how many years had passed since they had been small-town girls from Bodeen, Texas, Bliss Cavendar found herself thinking, had she always been so transparent to other people, when she herself had not really known what she was feeling? Perhaps the need that consumed her so strongly now had been always there, waiting for her to find it.

She remembered vividly how she and Pash had rolled their eyes at Corbie’s pathetic prank back in high school so long ago, the two bound, dark-haired nude Barbie dolls in Bliss’s locker, meant to resemble herself and Pash in a sexual embrace. Was it really just a pure act of mockery on her pageant rival’s part, or had Corbie actually sensed something that Bliss herself had suppressed so long that she didn’t think it truly existed? Pash was Bliss’s dearest friend – perhaps her only real friend until Bliss had discovered roller derby and joined the Hurl Scouts – but Bliss had always believed, or had convincingly lied to herself, that there was nothing more to the relationship than an almost sisterly bond.

Sometimes at night, when both girls had become grown women with their own separate but still connected lives, Bliss had been troubled by memories and half-dreams, images of Pash that kept returning despite her tossing and turning in her bed with irritation, trying to push the thoughts away and concentrate on roller derby or work or anything else except the almost erotic, but not quite, stirrings in her body and mind. Stirrings caused by the memory of Pash helping to wash and dye Bliss’s hair before a pageant and watching it turn blue, or of Bliss helping Pash to throw up when she so desperately needed to at the party after Bliss's first official roller derby game, or of how it had hurt to have Pash be so mad with her after the arrest at the championship qualifiying bout - but most of all, stirrings caused by recalling dancing with Pash at the Oink Joint, singing a parody of Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” as they made fun of their dull little town. It made Bliss strangely ache to remember how it felt to hold Pash in her arms, recalling the smell of Pash’s hair and the softness of her skin. Bliss had briefly wondered back then, for the first time ever, what it would be like to be closer than friends with another girl, until Oliver had showed up and she had literally dropped Pash at the thrill of his arrival.

Perhaps that had been part of Oliver’s appeal for Bliss – the fact that there was the playful, near-childlike, wise-cracking aspect to their relationship that Bliss had with Pash, but Oliver’s being a boy had made it more socially acceptable for Bliss to want him. The attraction to Oliver had been genuine enough, but there always had been something missing in desiring him that Bliss had not been willing to admit to herself. She came close to it on that night when she and Pash had driven to Austin to see the Misfits, shortly before Pash was to leave for New York and college, and Bliss was to start her new life, moving to Austin permanently and following her roller derby dreams.

Bliss had never got back her precious Stryper T-shirt from Oliver – or, more correctly, from the random blonde he had so carelessly and callously bestowed it on, but she finally let the sting of that betrayal leave her when she and Pash bought each other matching Misfits T-shirts after the show and later, a little drunkenly, kissed each other at the motel room they were sharing for the night. Neither of them mentioned it the next day, each girl telling herself it was because they were both wrecked and a little sentimental about the parting to come, but each time Bliss found herself frowning and clutching the bedclothes on one of those fretful nights in later years, she could almost feel the soft press of Pash’s lips against her own and their hearts beating, uncertain and afraid, yet truly alive with a longing that was undeniable although both of them were trying to deny it with their silence.

Years passed, with she and Pash meeting and parting again many times. Pash too had moved to Austin after college, and established a successful career for herself, but then Birdman had moved to Austin as well, and Pash and he had got married and had two kids. Bliss had a couple of boyfriends before deciding it was time to truly act on her attraction to other women and find the love of her life. Not realizing, of course, that she already had and that what she felt for that particular love would be for a long time left unspoken. Bliss’s family were not too thrilled when she came out as bisexual to them, but they loved her enough to want her to be happy, and by then they were resigned to the fact that Bliss was going to do whatever she wanted anyway. Just like she had with roller derby.

Naturally, she had found the woman who would be her beloved for the next few years and remain part of her life forever through the sport she so loved. The Hurl Scouts had been going from strength to strength each derby season, with Bliss finally breaking her former derby arch-rival Iron Maven’s record as the highest scoring jammer in the league and the rest of the team being as awesome as they ever were, but captain Maggie Mayhem was of the opinion that what was needed to make the team truly a force to be reckoned was a player who was beyond merely being out of the ordinary. Razor had agreed and picked her out at the next try-outs – a tall, strapping redhead who had literally stood head and shoulders above the rest of the fresh meat, and would go on to be one of the most powerful blockers the Hurl Scouts ever had. Her derby name was Precious Stoner (due not to any drug habits but to her passion for stoner rock music) but in Bliss’s arms she was always Miranda. Physically, she could not have been more different to Pash, but after their break-up Bliss realized that she had seen some of Pash’s personality in the woman who was first her "derby wife" and then her live-in girlfriend. They had been able to to spontaneously clown around and laugh together in the way that Bliss and Pash no longer could despite their enduring regard for each other. When Bliss and Miranda got together with Pash and Birdman and their children, Jack and Sophie, the conversation was of their new lives and there was a serious note beneath the lightness and fun, an inexorable knowledge that their lives had changed forever. It was there when Pash made “we’ll see” noises when little Sophie declared she wanted to play roller derby when she grew up, and had a tiny furrow in her brow when Bliss and Miranda jokingly made up possible derby names for her daughter. It was there when Bliss looked across at Pash and realized how much they had aged and changed in just a few years. They were the grown-ups they had thought they would never be – not exactly replicas of their mothers, but far different from what they had ever imagined they would be in their carefree teenage years.

It was the playful spirit of that long-ago time that Bliss had sorely missed when she first began to seek Miranda’s love. And it was the loss of that element that broke Bliss’s heart the most when Miranda moved out of Bliss’s bed and home soon after the fateful day they decided to call it quits. Their being team-mates helped them to remain close, but things would never be the same again.

The pain of watching love being downgraded to friendship was a pain like no other Bliss had experienced. And in the end it was Pash who understood the most, as she too was going through the same thing as her marriage to Birdman reached an amicable, but inevitable end. For a while, the two women became as inseparable as they had been as girls. And there was no clinging, or weeping, but a rekindling of light-heartedness that truly helped them both to begin to heal. When Bliss told Pash the news about how Miranda had ended up moving in with her new love, Iron Maven (who had retired from skating and had just started coaching the league’s newest team, the Night Brawlers), Pash had made a silly joke about making them Squealers for their "wedding feast" should they ever decide to have a commitment ceremony, and she and Bliss had literally rolled about laughing.

“Maven could maybe even eat TWO!” Bliss had shrieked, and they’d collided as they collapsed on the rug together, hearts pounding. Bliss had barely been able to refrain from kissing Pash right there and then. But she had seen the look in Pash’s eyes as they finally caught their breath, and knew that the time was right to ask Pash and the kids to move in with her. For practical reasons, of course, she told herself.

The time for kisses would come later, because the feelings that were slowly awakening between them were still new. For now it was enough to bask in the joy of a friendship that was at last being allowed to grow into love.


End file.
